Edenmoor records batted back and forth between Spratt, Mulvaney | Fort Mill Times - Fort Mill, SC

State Sen. Mick Mulvaney, R-Indian Land, a candidate for the Fifth Congressional District seat in South Carolina.

Edenmoor records batted back and forth between Spratt, Mulvaney | Fort Mill Times - Fort Mill, SC

LANCASTER -- The Edenmoor debacle has come back up and again been laid at the feet of Indian Land developer Mick Mulvaney because U.S. Rep. John Spratt can't talk about his record, Mulvaney said last week.
Mulvaney, a first-term Republican state senator, is challenging the 14-term incumbent congressman in the November general election. Spratt mentioned Edenmoor at a debate in Lake Wylie last month and last week began airing an ad, also available online, called "Flipped," based on the development and its woes.

The failed development is coming up again because Spratt has "nothing else to go on," Mulvaney said at a press conference he called last Thursday in downtown Lancaster.
Most Democratic incumbents facing stiff challenges from conservatives are using defense of Social Security as a big part of their playbook, Mulvaney said, adding that Spratt can't use that tactic because he has told some newspapers over the years he favors privatization of some kind.
Mulvaney said he also believes the ad is a sign that Spratt is no longer running his campaign. Some reports say this is the first time he has gone negative in his 28-year career as a politician.
Nu Wexler, a South Carolina native and Democratic operative who now lives in Washington, D.C., has returned to the Palmetto State to assist Spratt's campaign. He scoffed at Mulvaney's claim, saying last week’s press conference is a sign the Lancaster County senator is worried.
Democratic Party operatives who attended the press conference say Mulvaney did not tell the whole truth in his press conference.
York County Democratic Party Chairman Richards McCrae actually said after the press conference that Lancaster County Council Chairman Rudy Carter was "lying out of his [butt]" in defending Mulvaney.
Democratic officials are confident of their facts. One provided the Fort Mill Times with a compact disc containing a timeline, longer than a similar timeline Mulvaney prepared, an audio recording of Mulvaney speaking to Lancaster County Council, and about 34 different records related to the property in Edenmoor.
The records prepared by the Spratt campaign are lengthy.
Mulvaney also released a stack of records that he said detail his purchase of the property and the sale of it, a planned development agreement sold by his successors in the project, and records of permits issued by DHEC to those successors for initial work.
Mulvaney is still relatively unknown and has not really been vetted by voters across the 14 counties that comprise the Fifth Congressional District, Wexler said.
Wexler was upset that he and other campaign staffers were not allowed to enter the press conference, but Rainey and the other Democrats were allowed inside. The officials who went in and Wexler said Mulvaney is refusing to accept any responsibility for what happened to Edenmoor.
While Wexler took being barred from the room as a slight, Mulvaney addressed the Democrats who did get inside with cordiality at times, calling them "my Democratic friends." One Democratic aide from the state party in Columbia brought a video camera and recorded the entire press conference. That video has apparently been posted on YouTube.
A freelance writer working for the Fort Mill Times also videotaped the press conference and the entire video is available on YouTube.
Mulvaney said he hoped to put the issue behind him and move on "to the things people want to talk about, the things we need to talk about."
When asked if it indicated Spratt is having trouble this campaign season because this kind of ad was coming out so close to the election season, the Democrats at the event said it is a difficult campaign season for incumbents and Democrats.
"They could run a stray dog against Spratt and do as well as they are doing," this campaign season, McCrae said.
But as it stood, Mulvaney said that 35 days before the election, District 5 was getting half-truths and innuendo.
"This is what people hate about American politics," he said.

No way to know profit, but records show mlllions involved

State Sen. Mick Mulvaney, R-Indian Land, a candidate for the Fifth Congressional District seat in South Carolina, at a press conference he called last week.

Republican Congressional candidate Mick Mulvaney on Thursday, Oct. 7, provided copies of land transaction records detailing the time his company assembled the project for a development he called St. Katherine's, a development at the heart of an attack ad from his Democratic opponent John Spratt, a 14-term incumbent.
The development has failed and there is runoff from cleared land running off into a nearby creek. It was supposed to have thousands of dwellings, but has about 50. Bonds were used to build athletics fields, a cabana and an EMS station are in default.
Spratt's ad blames Mulvaney and said he walked away from the project after selling the land for a $7 million profit.
The first transaction was the purchase of 179.44 acres on Sept. 10, 1999. The land was bought for $713,715.60, or $3,977.46 an acre.
Two purchases on Jan. 5, 2005 for $39,583.33 of 36.8 acres completed the work Mulvaney did assembling St. Katherine's.
The development totaled 834.37 acres, bought for $4,928,077.56, or an average of $5,906.35 an acre.
Mulvaney also provided three records that detail the sale of the land from his to Lawson's Bend LLC, a partnership between GS Carolina and Sandler LLC Those sales were in May 5, 2005.
The records show three land sales:
• $659,277 if 36 acres;
• $10,689,260 for 179.4 acres; and
• $3,030,950 for an unspecified acreage.
That's a total of $10,689,260, according to a spreadsheet of the numbers.
The Spratt ad said Mulvaney made $7 million when he sold the property.
In his press conference, Mulvaney said subtracting the cost of his purchases from the price for which it was sold would provide a "gross" figure, but not a profit. It doesn't include the costs spent assembling the parcels, legal fees etc.
The difference between the cost to assemble the parcels and the cost to sell them is actually more than $9 million, according to the records Mulvaney provided.
Mulvaney said he would not say how much profit he made on the project, but showed select reporters income tax records from 2005 and 2006 that show a total annual income from one of his businesses substantially lower than the amount Spratt's ad claims he made.
However, Mulvaney has assembled the land for the development using several different companies.
The records Mulvaney's provided show 12 transactions, with parcels being bought by:
• K&J Partners of N.C.;
• Wedgewood Properties LLC;
• St. Catherine Properties LLC;
• Mulvaney Properties/Lancaster LLC; and
• Mulvaney Properties/South Carolina. LLC.
Those are different pieces of the Mulvaney family development business.
The records Mulvaney provided show he transferred all the land to Lawson's Bend from just two arms, K&J and St. Catherine Properties.
Spratt campaign workers provided a compact disc containing similar records. The records obtained by the Spratt campaign show slightly different prices for land transfers and acreage.
The Spratt record search apparently missed one parcel Mulvaney listed as being in St. Katherine. But Spratt's record show three sales to Lawson's Bend totaling the same amount as in Mulvaney's records.
Both indicate Mulvaney and family sold the land for about $9 million more than they bought it. Mulvaney said he owned just a 3.33 percent interest in the entity that sold the property to Lawson's Bend.
The Spratt disc also contains a number of other documents related in some way to Edenmoor.

Here are the figures from records released by Mulvaney.
Purchases

Date		Parcel size	Price
9/10/99		179.44	$713,715.60
5/1/01		294.7	$1,600,000.00
9/6/01		51	$100,050.00
9/6/01		(Same)	$259,920.00
6/24/02		13.89	$95,000.00
6/27/02		6.1	$24,757.20
7/29/02		23	$90,798.08
8/28/02		59.3	$435,000.00
8/28/02		138.24	$750,000.00
1/6/03		31.9	$188,836.68
1/5/05		12.8	$320,000.00
1/5/05		24	$350,000.00
Total		834.37	$4,928,077.56
Sale
Date		Parcel Size	Price
5/5/05		36	$659,277.00
5/5/05		630.93	$3,030,950.00
5/5/05		179.4	$10,689,260.00
Total sale			$14,379,487.00
Difference			9,451,409.44

Mulvaney holds press conference to dispute allegations in Spratt ad

State Sen. Mick Mulvaney, R-Indian Land, and his campaign staff walk across Main Street in Lancaster before a press conference.

Republican Congressional candidate Mick Mulvaney denied allegations made in a campaign advertisement by incumbent U.S. Rep. John Spratt, the 14-term Democrat he is seeking to unseat in November.

The ad, called "Flipped," makes numerous implications without giving him much to categorically deny, says Mulvaney. However, he says it is harmful not only to his reputation but to others as well.

"This is getting a little out of control, by the way," he said Thursday, Oct. 7.

"This is the type of thing that has to stop in this race," said Mulvaney, a state senator from Indian Land whose district includes parts of both Lancaster and York counties.

"It's one half-truth and innuendo after another," Mulvaney said of the ad and an old letter to the editor of a Lancaster County paper that attacked him.

Mulvaney said he doesn't like the attacks but expects them. But he said it is out of hand because others are now also being attacked.

Mulvaney said a Spratt volunteer said at a recent event "they know" Mulvaney bought off Lancaster County Councilman Rudy Carter, who has in the past defended Mulvaney's involvement in the deal.

Carter, a Democrat, also attended Mulvaney's press conference and said his father told a man's good name was his best attribute.

"Mick's been a friend of mine for a long time. John's been a friend of mine for a long time. I think the world of both of them," he said. "But if John Spratt knows some of his campaign people made comments like that, than John and I have a problem."

Mulvaney said it is going too far.

"This is my life, this is my family, this is how I provide for my wife and family, and I am being accused of some of the most heinous thing you can do in business, which is to be unethical," he said.

A reporter with the Associated Press and some Spratt campaign staffers arrived late and were not allowed into the crowded but not packed room at a Lancaster law firm where Mulvaney held his meeting. While the Spratt staffers were barred, a couple of representatives of the York and Lancaster county Democratic parties, as well as a Democratic campaign staffer from Columbia armed with a digital camera to record the proceedings, arrived on time and were allowed in.

The Lancaster County land deal had been in the works since 1999, which Mulvaney said was the major evidence that the property had not been "flipped," as the name of the ad says.

Flipping in real estate happens over a short period of time, sometimes with property being sold twice the same day.

Spratt's ad says Mulvaney made a $7 million profit selling the failed 500-acre development near Indian Land.

Mulvaney said he sold the land in 2005 and showed select reporters two tax forms from 2005 and 2006. The total annual income listed on the records for those years was millions less than what Spratt alleges in his ad. Mulvaney did not allow reporters to copy the forms and requested they not write down the specific figures.

Mulvaney said the forms were the S-Corporation filings for one of his LLCs.

Spratt's ad says Mulvaney secured $30 million in bonds to develop the land. Mulvaney did get permission from Lancaster County to issue bonds in that amount, but those bonds were never sold. When he sold the land to later developers, they scuttled much of the plans, including the zoning he had done for it, and revamped the overall plan.  Lawson's Bend LLC got its own bonds, and those bonds are in default.

So Spratt's ad, which says the project failed despite the bonds Mulvaney got, is not factual in that regard.

Mulvaney's development would have had apartments, more homes so a higher density. The homes would have been cheaper homes. The new developers wanted to sell fewer but higher-end homes.

The land development never materialized as either Mulvaney or the second team envisioned, he said. He blames it entirely on the collapse of the housing market.

The ad also says Mulvaney vouched for the new development team and made a promise to stay involved. The ad says Mulvaney's "partners" had defaulted on a land deal in North Carolina to the tune of $72 million right before Mulvaney vouched for them to Lancaster County Council. Mulvaney said he didn't know about that failure of one of two partners, but it is easily understood and explained.

He said IBM pulled out of a research park in the N.C. Research Triangle and it ruined the park, but the company was a sound one business with ties to Sara Lee and PYI/Monarch Foods. Parts of the land company are still in business, he said.

Mulvaney said he dealt primarily with the other partner, GS Carolina, which he said is a strong business still in the area. It has another development of the size and scale of Edenmoor that is still under active development north of Charlotte.

Mulvaney said he wanted to "bid" to remain the manager of the development process, but "that never happened." He said he hasn't talked to the company official he most dealt with for at least two years.

Mulvaney denied making $7 million selling the land, but refused to answer direct questions about how much he spent to assemble the land, first for his own development company, nor how much he made when he sold it in 2005.

"Our business is private," he said. "We don't disclose our profits. I own 3.33 percent of the entity that owned this land."

He assumes that critics of his involvement have taken deed stamps for the 12 purchases he made to assemble the property and subtracted those totals from the totals on the deed stamps from the three sales he made to Lawson's Bend.

That would be a gross number, however.

"That would be like looking at the raw materials on a car and saying that was the cost of the car," he said.

He would not detail how much he spent assembling the land. In addition to the purchase prices, he would have had to pay legal fees on the purchases, pay filing fees for zoning issues, and pay for staff time.

He admitted releasing the exact figures might demonstrate what actually happened, and said he would speak to reporters off the record. During that conversation, he showed the two tax forms, but they did not have a gross total for his purchases or for his sale to Lawson Bend.

He had earlier said that kind of information is never released in his business.

"It just isn't done," he said.

The ad, by innuendo, blames Mulvaney for all that has happened to the development since. But he said his company never turned over any dirt on the project or did any land preparation.

Any of the work done in the development was done by his successors on the project. About 50 homes, soccer fields and an EMS station have been built.  The bond obtained by the second developers paid for the fields and the EMS station.

But sidewalks are in need of repair, as is the EMS station. There is runoff from cleared tracts of land going into a nearby creek.

Mulvaney said Lancaster County taxpayers are not on the hook, neither for his $30 million bond, because it was never issued or sold, nor the later bond Lawson's Bend obtained. The bonds are not general obligation bonds, Mulvaney said. The residents in Edenmoor pay a "special assessment" on their property tax bill, above and beyond their regular county property taxes.

Had the development succeeded, thousands of households would be paying the "assessment," but instead, about 50 or so families now in the development are on the hook.

Mulvaney said the development should have been foreclosed on. He said that is how such failed developments normally proceed. But the banks holding the liens on the property are refusing to foreclose because of the collapse of the housing market and the freeze on credit and financing the country has been experiencing.

It's a case of regulatory gridlock, he said.

Mulvaney's campaign released copies of deeds for the purchases and the sale, along with a timeline of the transactions. See related post.

The Spratt campaign released a compact disc with records it says establishes that the ad is true.

The general election is "35 days away," Mulvaney said at the time of the Thursday press conference.



Mulvaney has created a website to respond to the Edenmoor ad.

Here's raw footage of the press conference, in three pieces.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

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My wife's new job

I'm going to have to update the home page of my old website, that this blog is someday to replace.
It has the Fort Mill Times on it.
Anyway, Patricia is now editor of The Catholic News & Herald, the newspaper of the diocese of Charlotte.
She sent me an e-mail about a "daunting" aspect of her new job.
She had to edit a piece from 1750 words to 450. So you ask, "So?"
The writer is the Pope. 
I e-mailed her back, saying, "What's so daunting about editing the Bishop of Rome, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, the Primate of Italy, the Archbishop and the Metropolitan of the Roman Province, the Sovereign of the State of Vatican City, the Servant of the Servants of God?"
Everybody needs an editor, my old senior editor Phil Hudgins used to write. 
I mean, the pope doesn't write his column while sitting on the Holy See, see?
(That would denote he is speaking, or writing, ex cathedra, or infallibly.)

Anyway, it was tough for her to leave her old gig behind.

Patricia's passion was the paper

It was with a lot of soul-searching that my wife, Patricia Larson Guilfoyle, decided to take another job.
She will probably add this letter to the things for which she wants to kill me, but she’s also, to a fault, someone who will keep things inside way too much, not wanting a fuss.
More than 11 years ago, she came to Fort Mill to take on the position of as publisher-editor of the Fort Mill Times. She thought it a good job, a step up from where she’d been. She thought the paper needed some help, and she had the skills to do what needed to be done. It was within her professional reach.
One of the things she thought the paper needed was a restored sense of presence in the community. To do that, she threw herself into several different activities and groups, including the Fort Mill Rotary Club, the chamber, the downtown association. She kept herself pretty busy.
She brought the paper around financially, and advanced it to where it was profitable, and also again one of the most awarded, respected large weeklies in the state of South Carolina. She ended up in more than one leadership role in those clubs, and also worked her way up to becoming the president of the S.C. Press Association. All at a very young age, I might add.
If one simply looks at her resume, she is one hell of a journalist and one hell of a businesswoman.
But her job in Fort Mill, from the earliest stages, became more than just a job.
She took on other assignments from her company because her company needed her skills. She did all those other jobs to the best of her abilities, and she did them well.
But it was always the Times and Fort Mill Township that had her heart.
Over the years she would introduce me to several people. Old guys, mostly. They all flirted with her; she tried her best to flirt back. Never anything serious in the conversation as I watched, but once they left, she’d tell me of the respect she held for those men. They are of that Greatest Generation and they are the men who built Fort Mill into something. Many are forgetting those men. But she never did, and always made a point to get them in the paper, to point them out to me.
It’s without a doubt, if she could have remained simply as the publisher of the Fort Mill Times, and been able to do her job the way she wanted it done, the difficult decision she made to leave would probably have been impossible. But her decision also has a lot to do with our family and her desire to find more time to spend with our son.
So, she made a hard choice. She worked about 60 hours her last week with the Times and parent company McClatchy, finishing up Jan. 29. She started her new job Feb. 1.
Because she won’t, I would like to let you know, on her behalf, how much she loved her time with the paper, how important all the readers were to her, and how much she loves Fort Mill. She’ll miss it, greatly.
Her new position is in North Carolina, but that doesn’t mean we’re leaving.
We’re staying right here, because she loves it, and she’s taught me to love it as well. This is a place that gets under your skin, in a good way.
On her behalf, I’d like to thank the readers of the Times for 11great years.
Stephen Guilfoyle

Still learning about son

In many ways, we know nothing about my son. He’s almost 11 months old.

We see him do something new and think, is that what he will be?

Yet we still aren’t sure what color his hair will be, permanently. It seems blond right now. But I was blond as a child, they say. His mother is blond, but my son doesn’t use any such products on his hair. (That line might have been a suicide attempt. Not sure.)

I watch him throw things around, with his left arm more than his right arm lately. And they are tossed with such force.

He will be a major league pitcher, I think. A quarterback. I’m sure of it.

His little donut ring toy — he rolls it around, so he might could be a bowler. Or maybe a mechanic or a tire changer on a NASCAR race team.

His favorite toy right now is a little wooden biplane with big wheels. It’s meant to be ridden somewhat like a tricycle, but his feet don’t reach the ground when he’s on it. But he leans on it and it’s helping him learn to walk.

He can roll along so good with it — he loves it.

Will he be a pilot?

Or a runner? That would be certainly falling far from the vine, as his daddy isn’t a runner. I’m not even a brisk walker.

He’s a good boy. I’ve heard people say that about their kids and seen evidence, quickly, that it isn’t exactly so.

He’s got a little bit of mischief in him, but he does it in plain sight, that little smile on his face letting all know he knows he’s pushing a button.

But he’s 99 percent good and happy, and only unhappy when he bumps his head or has got a cold bigger than the usual baby sniffles.

Whatever happens, I think he will be a gentle man and a gentleman, like his grandfather, for whom he is named.

He got the biplane from my wife’s parents. The maternal grandparents also got him a huge fluffy ball of a toy, a duck. When you squeeze it, it makes a noise, a ducky, coughy kind of noise. That’s his second favorite toy, I think.

He doesn’t squeeze it with a hand or an arm. He attacks it, attacks it like he’s a paramedic doing CPR.

“I … won’t … let you die!” he seems to be saying as he fiercely pushes onto the duck’s “heart.” Is he the next Johnny Gage/Roy DeSoto? (Does anyone remember the guys from “Emergency.”)

We have baby gates at the top and bottom of the stairs. He crawls over to them, stands up, rattles them.

“Let me out, ya screws!” I say everytime I see him do it. He’s like Jimmy Cagney in “White Heat.”

Whatever he becomes, he won’t make a good jail bird, I think.

The way he swished about in the bathtub, we knew he was going to be a great swimmer. I love to swim, but his mother, she used to competitive swim as a girl.

Is he the next Mark Spitz?

So when he got into the pool at my sister’s development, we were surprised he didn’t want to stay in as long as we thought he might. But it was a relief, a bit, to me. I’m not too sure I like the idea of any progeny of mine going about in a Speedo.

He just stares at things at times, and I think he’s going to be a scientist. Deep, deep thoughts.

He pushes a box along, opens things up, tries to take a few things and I think he might be like his Uncle John or his Grandpa Tom. A handy man, good with tools.

We don’t know anything, really. But we look at all he does, simple, silly things, all of it new to him and made new to us.

I don’t want to find out too soon, but I am also dying to find out what this little man might someday become.

Then I change one of his diapers, one of THOSE diapers, and I know.

He’s going to be a politician.

Xs and Os for Daddy's Day

By Stephen Guilfoyle
Editor

There was a touch of sadness in my dad's voice a few years back.

He had gone up to New York City, I think for a funeral.

My cousins had given him a hug and a kiss.

"I can get my nephews to give me a little kiss, but not my sons," he said.

So I gave him a pat on the back.

I'm no one's definition of a macho man, but I have taken on, over the years, some decidedly macho mannerisms.

I prefer always to go to a barber shop. I want to go in and grunt. If there is to be conversation, let it be about football, baseball and nothing in between. Or the latest political goings-on with them "idiots" up in Washington or down in Columbia.

I do not want to talk about what I want done to my hair.

I want to say, "Regular cut" nine months of the year and "Trim" in the summer and get the exact same hair cut for my $5 bucks. But that hasn't happened, really, since I moved from New York. Just can't find a good old fashioned enough barber, most of the time. Or can't go to the few I've found regularly enough, given my commute.

That's just one thing. I do eat quiche, and they have a fantastic quiche at the Olde English Creamery, but I haven't been back to get it since that first time.

But I resisted quiche as a youngster. But break it down. You say quiche, I say cheese and bacon pie. What could be more dude-ish than cheese and bacon? Than pie?

Not much.

But along the line, I had stopped giving my dad a hug giving him a goodbye kiss or just saying, "Love you" when I left his home or on the phone.

He said what he said, and I've done a better job, since, but I still don't do it all the time. But he deserves them all. He's a great guy, and the best father.

I bring this up, because I get it now. I understand.

It was Father's Day Sunday. My first Father's Day

Just coincidentally, my son kissed me, on Sunday. Or maybe not coincidentally.

His mother my lovely bride goes into work most Sunday afternoons, so my boy and I have a lot of "daddy time" as my wife calls it.

I get to play with him, get to feed him, get to change him, get to give him his bath and get to put him to bed almost every Sunday.

He had this thing he did with his mother and me, where he'd come at us, mouth wide open. I called it a kiss, but he could just as easily been trying to chew my chin off. Gnaw a little, dribble a little drool down our chins.

Is that saying I love you? Or is that just sharing the saliva? Spreading the spit?

On Sunday, he wasn't feeling great. He's normally a great eater - my son, after all - but he didn't have a great appetite. I took him out of his high chair and fed him these little "puffs" they have now, no calories, one by one.

After a while, he wouldn't eat them off his high chair tabletop, but he took them from me, one by one.

He just liked them, so he ate them. But after about the third he ate from my hand, sitting on my lap, he smiled and leaned in, all the way in.

He didn't open up his mouth for the "bite" he usually takes. Nope, he just smooshed his mouth against mine. And did it two more times, smiling all the while.

To some people, fathers are a joke, a punchline. Many times, fathers aren't there, and we are bearing the price as a society.

We hear a lot about children cast rudderless because they don't have a father or enough positive male role models. To me, that bodes not well for the future. But the problem with absent fathers isn't just the effect it will have down the road.

This little man is changing me every single day, making me be better every single day, and making me want to be better, every single day.

The men who are absent from their children are both fools and they are missing out on the best thing possible. They are paying a price now that they have no idea about.

I'm told I dote on my son and my family has been good enough to let me know they think I'm doing a good job, so far.

"All you need is love," John, Paul, George and Ringo sang a long time ago. If only that were true.

My son has been sick a couple of times, stumbled and landed bad - sometimes on his head, and cried, more than a couple of times. I love him, but that doesn't make the sick go away, doesn't make the hurt stop hurting. I wrap him up in a hug, but he still, sometimes, whimpers or cries.

All you need is love. I wish that were true.

But love does give and does solve some things.

When I married, I said my wife was making me into the man I was supposed to be. Funny how a good woman can do that.

My son is filling in the gaps, making me into a man I never thought I could be.

It's a shame that it seems that fatherhood sounds like I'm doing a lot more taking than giving. But my son is giving so much to me.

We had a special day, and I know why my father wants a hug and a kiss from his sons, because I know how good it makes you feel, now, to have your son kiss you. And he won't get any guff from me about it any more.

So it was a very special day. We ended it like any other, doing that pre-sleep ritual. I, of course, gave him his bath, and he played and he splashed and he played and he laughed.

And then he pooped in the tub.

All you need is love? Love doesn't scoop a floater out of the tub.

Story posted at OnlineChester.com Jun 19, 2007 - 23:24:55 EDT

FIRE AT TONY'S II: Softball team backers punt their barbecue

It’s not a football term, but the Carolina Angels softball team and their backers had to punt Saturday.
They were to hold a barbecue fund-raiser at Fest-i-Fun. They had the backing of the Bare Bones Barbecue team. They had about 500 pounds of Boston butts to be smoked up for hungry festival-goers and a prime spot, just next to the big white main tent, from which to sell.
Like in softball and many sports, the threat of rain wasn’t a sure bet to call the game.
But Tony’s Pizza caught fire early Saturday morning, and Fest-i-Fun was cancelled by city organizers.. Fire trucks remained on Tom Hall Street, downtown Fort Mill’s main drag, late into the afternoon, and much of the downtown was blocked off by police cars and yellow tape.
So the Carolina Angels punted.
Michael Kidd, who coaches the Angels and is also on Bare Bones arranged to set up at the Presbyterian chuch a couple of blocks down S.C. Hwy. 160 across from the walking park.
The girls on the team made a couple of signs, got at least one white balloon — just circular — and took to the sidewalk hawking ’cue.
Kidd said he “grew up” in the church, so it wasn’t a problem getting the location.
This is the second year Bare Bones has cooked ‘cue for the Angels. They raised about $2,000 at Fest-i-Fun last year, and had hoped to raise at least that much this year, selling, by the plate, barbecue that has won awards in the Greenway Barbecue and Bluegrass festival in the fall.
The barbecue is smoked in a cooker after being prepped with a ketchup/vinegar mix sauce. Brian Kidd worked the smoker Saturday.
About five or six of the girls on the team were working the signs, one for the softball team, another for the barbecue team. They were working hard but laughing.
They seemed to be having a good time despite learning that sometimes, in life, sometimes even in softball, you have to punt.

Extra Meatball Please: Fire At Tony's

Tony's Pizza in downtown Fort Mill burned Saturday morning.
Owner Joseph Randazzo says he thinks he is going to build back, but it's too early to tell.
I understand it being too soon. The fire started around 3 a.m., and it's just about 1 p.m. now.
But he needs to build it back. Not for his own business plan or for its historical value.
No, it's just that I think Tony's Pizza is tied inextricably both to my life in Fort Mill and my marriage.
When I was a' courtin' my wife, many is the time I would drive up to Fort Mill. The first place she took me to lunch in Fort Mill, when I came up on a Friday afternoon, was Tony's Pizza.
She said I had to have the lunch special.
Yumola.
The lunch special. Spaghetti and meatballs and garlic knots.
It might have been that first lunch there, but it was there I met Jeff Updike.
He was having the lunch special. I think, for some odd reason, he did not have the meatballs. There certainly weren't any meatballs on his plate when he invited Patricia to come on over to his table and sit. They were Rotary buddies.
He looked me up and down kind of like he was a big brother checking me out, knowing that Patricia had a new "beau."
I guess he found me worthy enough. At Patricia's prompting, he told me all about about his work with the Nation's Ford Land Trust, a conservancy to protect land in York County. Despite his unredeemable character flaw of being a Clemson fan, I made a friend that day.
That was just the first time I had lunch there, just the first of many fine Fort Mill Township people I met and befriended.
And the special was always so good, I took to ordering an extra meatball.
I branched out just once, and tried the lasagna.
With an extra meatball on the side. I just had to have it.
Yumola.
There are other restaurants in the Township. But Tony's Pizza is just a piece of downtown Fort Mill that needs to be there. Since I ate there with my fiancée who has since become and remains my wife, the two are linked in the back of my mind in some weird way. It is not logical, I admit. But it is what it is in my mind.
If Joe Randazzo and building owner Bayles Mack do not build it back, who knows what will happen to my marriage?
It's not just me. When my brother and sisters came to Fort Mill to meet Patricia, they went downtown. It was lunchtime, late in the week. So they went to Tony's.
They know it too, though they rarely get to downtown Fort Mill when they get here.
So Saturday, May 5, 2007, might end up bring a real sad morning, if the fire marks the end.
It has to come back. I need my lunch special.
And an extra meatball.

Check out the Fort Mill Times breaking news coverage of the fire here.